Meanwhile let us follow Mrs. Radcliffe in her upward
course.
The "Sicilian Romance" appeared in 1790, when the author's age was twenty-
six. The book has a treble attraction, for it contains the germ of
"Northanger Abbey," and the germ of "Jane Eyre," and--the germ of Byron!
Like "Joseph Andrews," "Northanger Abbey" began as a parody (of Mrs.
Radcliffe) and developed into a real novel of character. So too Byron's
gloomy scowling adventurers, with their darkling past, are mere
repetitions in rhyme of Mrs. Radcliffe's Schedoni. This is so obvious
that, when discussing Mrs. Radcliffe's Schedoni, Scott adds, in a note,
parallel passages from Byron's "Giaour." Sir Walter did not mean to
mock, he merely compared two kindred spirits. "The noble poet" "kept on
the business still," and broke into octosyllabics, borrowed from Scott,
his descriptions of miscreants borrowed from Mrs. Radcliffe.
"A Sicilian Romance" has its scene in the palace of Ferdinand, fifth
Marquis of Mazzini, on the northern coast of Sicily. The time is about
1580, but there is nothing in the manners or costume to indicate that, or
any other period. Such "local colour" was unknown to Mrs. Radcliffe, as
to Clara Reeve. In Horace Walpole, however, a character goes so far in
the mediaeval way as to say "by my halidome."
The Marquis Mazzini had one son and two daughters by his first amiable
consort, supposed to be long dead when the story opens.
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